52. 200m Freestyle

Event: 200m Freestyle
Date: 30th May 2014
Location: London Aquatics Centre, Stratford.  
Cost: £4.50 each
Rules:  Competitors swim four lengths of crawl as fast as possible. Some part of the swimmer must touch the wall at the end of each length and at the finish. Most perform tumble turns, somersaulting in front of the wall and pushing off with their feet.

The Event:

Times:

London 2012 Olympic Gold: 1.53.61, Allison Schmitt, USA.  
Sarah: 5.43.79
Ellie: 6.00.44
 

Comments:  

Sarah: We returned to the Olympic pool for event 52. It's a shame we don't get the lane to ourselves (!) as it was pretty busy tonight. We chose the medium lane, and managed to find suitable gaps in the traffic, though we had to mainly touch-turn so not to kick other swimmers in the face. My first attempt at the event went wrong after a disastrous dive forced my goggles and nose clip off; the latter sinking to the bottom of the pool, until a kind lady dived down and retrieved it for me. The second dive went more to plan, and I'm pleased with my time, although my pace was definitely lagging on the third length.  

Ellie: The pool felt cooler tonight and certainly busier... Why can't I pay my £4.50 and have the pool to myself? I don't think that's too much to ask... seriously though, it's really encouraging that you can pay as little as that and swim in a modern Olympic pool. 
I'm still taking it easy after my 20k walk experience so I'm really pleased with my time - I also really like it when my time is a round number! It did feel quite slow though and I didn't feel particularly at ease with breathing. I also only managed one tumble turn as there were so many people in the lane with me. We now need to gear up to the very long distances and with at least one 50m pool on the route for our annual 'All the Lidos' swimming day we should be getting those started before the midway point.

51. Road Cycling: Individual Time Trial

Event: Road Cycling: Individual Time Trial
Date: 11th May 2014 (Sarah) / 19th June 2014 (Ellie)
Location: Tour de Tendring (Sarah) / Essex countryside (Ellie) 
Cost: £17.50 entry fee (Sarah) / Free (Ellie)
Rules:  The road cycling time trial consists of a timed lap over a 29K course (or 18 miles), with the athletes starting in staggered 90 second intervals. The aim is to complete the course in the fastest time possible. 

The Event:
 

The Route

Times:

London 2012 Olympic Gold: 0:37.34, Kristin Armstrong, USA.  
Sarah: 1:38.52
Ellie: 2:15.00

Comments:  

Sarah: I recently dragged out my trusted mountain bike and started training for our road cycling events. I got the bike 17 years ago; it's built like a tank, as heavy as one too, but it's still in pretty decent condition, and I've loved getting reacquainted. It had a thorough service from the lovely volunteers at Wivenhoe Bike Kitchen and we've clocked up more miles over the last few weeks than we have over recent years. Cycling should be in my blood; my Dad was a keen cyclist since his first job working in a bike shop. He helped build the pro's bikes and accompanied the athletes on long test-rides to alter the set-up along the route. 

Dad on his racer

For as long as I can remember, cycling has been a permanent fixture in our house, and I regret only now starting to get the bug. I lost my Dad two years ago, and found this an emotional event to complete. Dad would have loved to have known about this Challenge, but particularly all the cycling events. How I would dearly love to pick his brain, hear more of his cycling stories, and really share his enthusiasm for the sport. 

I rode the race with my boyfriend Greg (riding Dad's old bike), and on the morning we were greeted with cold drizzle and strong gusts of wind. Rather than putting a dampener on things, the weather created a really great atmosphere. It was such a lovely feeling cycling along as part of a huge group. The memory of Dad was in my heart and mind as I drove down on the peddles and slugged my way up the hills. The route we were doing was 20 miles, so I timed myself over the first 18 miles to form the Olympic Time Trial course length. I wish I'd put a bit more pace into the first more conservative ten miles (I didn't want to burn out!), as I felt in the latter part of the race I really settled into a rhythm and was motoring along. It was strange doing the event without Ellie (she wasn't able to compete due to injury, but will be completing it soon), but I've definitely caught the cycling bug. I got home and looked up other, longer races in the coming months; I'm actually looking forward to training up to our 87 mile road race! 

Ellie: 

As you know I had a tough time after the 20k walk race. So much so that I couldn't complete the Time Trial with Sarah on the 11th of May. Yesterday though, I jumped on my glorious 20 year old bike and headed out into Colchester. I was helped through the 18 miles by the Mapmyride app which has a lovely soothing voice which spurred me on each time I clocked up another mile. There were also some really lovely smells about yesterday - grass, flowers and seaside and some very pretty scenery. 
The cycle gave me so much to think about. What do you do if you want to cycle but don't have a bike? or a helmet? or you're unsure about cycle paths? or you have to change your regular route at short notice and don't know where to go? or what if the city you live in is just too busy? There are lots of things that I'll be thinking about before the long ride later in the challenge. Back to yesterday; it wasn't the nicest of summer days but it was still quite pleasant and it was really just the last 3 miles that caused me any issues - thinking about cheese and biscuits got me all the way home!

50. 20K Race Walk

Event: 20K Race Walk
Date: 28th April 2014
Location: Pier-to-Pier, Clacton-Walton (and back!)
Cost: £25 each for St Helena's Hospice
Rules:  Race Walking is a long-distance athletic event. It's a very technical discipline, and unlike running, one foot must be on the ground at all times; the athletes back toe can't leave the floor until the heel of the front foot hits the ground. The supporting leg must be straight from point of contact with the floor, and remain straightened until the body has passed over it. These two rules are judged by eye by on-course judges (rather than cameras), and if in violation, the athlete will receive two warnings. If they break one of the rules a third time, they will be disqualified and removed from the race. Use of the arms, pelvis and hips are essential to maximise speed, with short and quick strides. The 20K Race Walk takes place on public roads, and ends in the Olympic Stadium. World-class Race Walkers will average 4-5minute kilometres.

The Event: :

 

 

                    

Times:

London 2012 Olympic Gold: 1.25.02 WR, Elena Lashmanova, Russia.  
Sarah: 3.12.25
Ellie: 3.44.17 

Comments:  

Sarah: The Race Walk! We had our first encounter with this event at an open day at Southend Athletics Club last summer. We had a very quick lesson on the technique before plunging into a 1 mile race around the track. It was a very brief introduction to the sport, but we've been practicing on and off since in an attempt to get to grips with the tricky technique. There are a lack of 20K races in the UK, let alone Essex, so we decided to take part in the St Helena Hospice Pier-to-Pier charity walk. It's not specifically a Race Walk event, but we checked with the organisers, and it was fine for us to enter, so we just tracked our 20K (12.4 miles) distance within the slightly longer 14 mile course. It was great to take part in an organised event as it gave us a structure for the distance, and the flat course definitely helped with our times (training didn't extend to working out how to Race Walk up/down hills with a straight supporting leg!). My target was to stay under 10 minutes per kilometre, and it was quite fun tracking it and trying to beat my previous km. I think the best I did was 8mins, and I averaged around 9mins per km. I managed to keep my pace for the whole distance, which is something I wasn't expecting, and I was pretty pleased with my finishing time. If we were taking part in a proper Race Walk event, I'm pretty sure I would have been disqualified for breaking the 'straight leg' rule more than twice, but nevermind! Surprisingly, it also turned out to be one of the most injury-ridden events so far. I managed to walk smack into a bench less than a mile from the start, and an instant huge lump and bruise appeared on my leg and jolted with every step. I also got a pretty impressive/disgusting blister, which is still causing me to hobble around!  


Sarah's view at 20K

When I first started the Race Walk training, I found the technique so awkward and just wanted to start running. As the weeks went by, I found I would settle into the rhythm after the first couple of miles, and it definitely started to feel more natural. I don't think this is an event I'll be returning to in the future, at least not whilst I can run, but I definitely enjoyed learning another new sport.  


Ellie: By 9.15am we were signed in, had our wristbands on and had had a look round the pier. We were ready, or as ready as we were ever going to be when I was starting with non-regulation sports kit and woeful technique!

1-3k: Well, this is okay. Look at the sea view, that's a nice wind farm. Ooh a bit of sea spray, how novel!
3-7k: RNLI lifeboats. Crabs legs on the path (weird). Shingle, sand, steps!? Golf course. Sea Spray. Sea Spray. Sea spray in my face. Cocking sea spray.
7-10k: Unexpected spurt of speed - look at me go. Where's Sarah? She should be on her return leg by now; there she is! High five!
10-13k: Ahh Walton Pier. Now I get some free water and a change of scenery. Small child on a bike... must resist the urge to push him off and ride off into the distance. Hmmm the change of scenery just means that the sea is on the right hand-side rather than the left. But here comes the sun!
13-17k: It's pretty warm now. Where's the sea spray when you need it? Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.
 17-20k: Is. It. Over. Yet?

Ellie's view at 20k.

And then it was over. I'd never been so pleased to see Clacton Pier. I got a medal, a nice women congratulated me on my motivation and Sarah's Mum bought us an ice cream (mint choc chip obvs). Then the hard part began. I'm writing this on Tuesday afternoon and I can barely walk. I'm not designed for walking. My muscle development and flexibility, let alone my stamina, make it really hard. I knew all this but sort of ignored it. I can certainly say that this event has been a learning experience - congenital defects aside, it's really important to know your body and your limits in sport and you can't be good or capable in all events. Now, I've just got to find somewhere prominent to display this medal!

 

49. 4 x 100m Medley Relay

Event: 4 x 100m Medley Relay
Date: 14th April 2014
Location: London Aquatics Centre, Stratford.  
Cost: £4.50 each
Rules:  Swimmers compete in teams of four, using all four swimming strokes in the sequence of: backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle. Each team member takes turns to swim four lengths of the pool. The outgoing swimmer must not loose touch with the starting platform before the preceding team-mate touches the wall, or the team will be disqualified. Some part of the swimmer must touch the wall at the end of each length and at the finish.

The Event:

  

Times:
London 2012 Olympic Gold: 3.52.05 WR, USA.  
Team S&E: 12.36.02

Spilts:
Sarah (backstroke): 3.02
Zoe (breaststroke): 2.46
Ellie (butterfly): 4.04
Elaine (freestyle): 2.84

Comments:  

Sarah: Our first medley event! Though sadly, the last aquatic relay of the Challenge. The mix of strokes made this really fun. We all chose our preferred stroke and got stuck straight in. Ellie got lumped with the unpopular Butterfly- she definitely took one for the team there, but pulled it off impressively. As with lots of the other team events, it was really fun cheering each other on in our imaginary competition, and the best bit; as the only competitors, we always come first.

Ellie: Our first event with Butterfly in it and I'm really pleased with how it went. As we had four people in the pool it really did seem wise to complete this event even though we're new to butterfly - another popular win for logistics! Butterfly seems totally alien to the other swimming strokes but, with it's conception in the 1930's coming from the animals of the sea it could be argued as the most natural. I can certainly imagine that if you do it well it can be really rewarding. I definitely enjoyed it and with practice I hope my technique, stamina and time will improve.

48. 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay

Event: 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay
Date: 14th April 2014
Location: London Aquatics Centre, Stratford.  
Cost: £4.50 each
Rules:  Swimmers compete in teams of four, choosing the stroke of their preference; usually the crawl as this is the fastest stroke. Each team member takes turns to swim four lengths of the pool. Some part of the swimmer must touch the wall at the end of each length and at the finish. Most perform tumble turns, somersaulting in front of the wall and pushing off with their feet.

The Event:

Times:

London 2012 Olympic Gold: 7.42.92, USA.
Team S&E: 24.42.11

Spilts:
Elaine: 5.58
Zoe: 6.59
Ellie: 6.11
Sarah: 6.14
 

Comments:  

Sarah: Our first event in an actual Olympic venue! The London Aquatics Centre is pretty special. The building is huge, and the pool is the stuff of swimming-dreams. We went after work, in peak hours, but as the pool is so big we had plenty of lane space to do our relays without diving on top of the other swimmers. We'd roped in two friends to help us and after a bit of a warm-up we were off. The freestyle relay is pretty simple; dive in and swim as fast as possible. Our changeovers were smooth and as you can see, we weren't far off the Olympic pace (!!).

Ellie: It was such an amazing experience to swim in the London 2012 pool; it's really beautiful and in theory, I can walk there from my house in Mile End - what a privilege! 
Our front crawl relay swims are over with this one complete and actually I find that quite sad. It's nice to be part of a team in an event that can be so lonesome.  

47. Wrestling - Women's Freestyle

Event: Wrestling - Women's Freestyle
Date: 28th March 2014
Location: London Hunters Gym
Cost: Free (thank you Eric!)  
Rules: Wrestling was one of the original sports to feature in the ancient Olympics in Greece in 779BC. Despite it's history, the women's event wasn't introduced until 2004. Greco Roman Wrestling was the original style (holds allowed from the waist up), but Freestyle quickly grew in popularity due to it's greater freedoms within the rules to tackle and subdue the opponent (holds allowed on the whole body). There are four women's weight categories in Olympic competitions and matches consist of 2x three minute halves, with a 30 second interval. The matches are judged on points or a fall. A fall is when a wrestler holds their opponent down with their back pinned to the mat for at least two seconds. If there are no falls during the match, then it is judged by points; which are awarded according to the difficulty of the hold. If at any time there is more than a 10 point difference, the match is stopped and the higher scoring wrestler wins. If during the normal duration, neither wrestler scores a minimum of three points, the match goes to extra time and ends when one wrestler gets to three points. 

   

The Event:

 

 

Score:

Ellie 8 v 2 Sarah

 

Comments:  

Sarah: We were both a bit nervous approaching wrestling; it's a sport that we knew little about other than the theatre of WWF, and it was a tough one to track down. It's the first sport that we were unable to complete in Essex; there are no wrestling clubs in the county, and the Hunters are one of the few clubs in the South-East. Luckily when we found the Hunters, Eric was up for helping us and we spent three weeks getting a whistle-stop introduction to the holds, attacks and rules of the sport. Match night arrived, and the contest passed in a flash; it felt like we were sussing each other out in the first half, both attempting to catch the other off-guard, and I was pleased to go into half-time even on 2-2. However, it all went wrong in the second half, and as Ellie kept tripping me, I repeatedly had to return to my trusted star position so she couldn't flip me for a 'fall'! As the seconds ticked down, all I could hear was my coach shouting "We need points! We need points!" and I did everything I could to get them, but I just couldn't topple Farrow! She trounced me!  Despite my huge defeat, I had a great time with the Hunters, and enjoyed Wrestling much more than I expected. It was really interesting learning the basics of a completely new sport and chatting to the club members to get an insight to wrestling- especially with Chloe about the women's competitions.

Ellie: Wrestling; our penultimate combat sport. Violence-wise this has felt on a par with Boxing - but you get more protective gear in boxing. To pin your opponent down you need have a great deal of balance and try to use their strength and weight against them. The holds and moves could be likened to Judo but again, once in a match scenario, these moves become difficult to pull off and you just go for what you can grab hold of! My coach, Bart, suggested I attack as defending wouldn't win me any points so that's what I did. I tried to pull Sarah's legs out from under her and keep myself out of her range. After the first round I was feeling a bit more comfortable (and pleased I'd only squealed once) and the last round flew by (sort of)! This is a sport not for the faint-hearted - you have to be willing to put your body through some hefty training and have quite a laissez-faire attitude to pain ... the speed these athletes can achieve is remarkable too. 

Thanks so much to Eric Ciake, our formidable coach, and to all at Hunters for such great support! We wish you all huge success in your future events!

46. Cycling - Mountain Bike - Cross Country

Event: Cycling - Mountain Bike - Cross Country
Date: 19th March 2014
Location: Rendlesham Forest Mountain Bike Trail
Cost: £3.30 for the car park 
Rules: Mountain biking was introduced to the Olympics in 1996 as the cross-country event. All riders start together and race over a course with each lap between 3-6km; the first over the finish line is the winner. The riders compete over a specified number of laps, determined at the latest two hours before the race starts to determine the optimum finishing time. The decision depends on the track and weather conditions. The course is marked and covers a variety of terrain with constant changes in elevation and difficulty. The course should include forest roads, tracks, earth and grave paths. Paved or asphalt roads should not exceed 15% of the total course.

   

The Event:

       

        

                                                         

Times:

Olympic Gold, London 2012: 1.30.52, 17.9 mile course, Julie Bresset, France.

Ellie and Sarah: 1.29.00, 10 mile course.  

Comments:  

Sarah: We didn't need too much preparation for this one, other than dusting off our bikes and borrowing a bike rack. As the Olympic distance is decided on the morning of the race (surely one of the only events to operate like this?!), we had a bit of flexibility with our distance, and decided to ride the 10 mile route around the forest. Our trail was much easier in terrain than the Olympic course, with an absence of steep inclines or teeth-rattling downhill slopes, but we had really varied terrain and a few uphill sections. Many of my childhood holidays were spent caravanning around UK forests and parks, and I had forgotten the feeling of freedom when speeding through the trees on your bike, bumping over mud tracks and roots. I'll definitely be investing in my own bike rack and checking out the other mountain bike trails around East Anglia. 

Ellie: The way in which we completed this event was beautiful. A lovely forest in fine weather. Trees, pigs and a military base... what could be better? We even had M&S Percy Pigs for a burst of energy (Other pig shaped sweets are available).
What I should have anticipated was that, as I'm totally unused to cycling, parts of body would suffer. I've never had pins and needles downstairs and I don't recommend it... and the last two miles were an absolute nightmare but the fresh air and camaraderie made it all worthwhile. I doubt Olympic competitors stop to look at piglets though and the balance needed and the trust placed in your machinery makes this another complex and interesting event especially as your not 100% certain of your race length before the day. 
Mountain biking also must be one of the most age accessible sports - a great number of children have bikes and do this sort of thing every weekend! Rendlesham Forest has bicycles for hire for those who don't. I would put this firmly on a list of events to do again... perhaps remembering to wear padded trousers next time.

We took the green 'FIDO Trail' route